Pedro López was born on October 8, 1948 in Columbia. He was born the seventh of 13 children in his family. His mother, a known prostitute, forced López to leave the family home at the age of 8 when she caught him molesting his younger sister. López claimed that within hours of being exiled from his home he had accepted an offer for food and shelter from an older man. This man took López into an abandoned home and sodomized him numerous time before throwing him back out onto the streets. López went through many different types of sexual and physical abuse throughout his life on the streets.

At first police officers in Ecuador, Columbia and Peru believed that most of the missing girls had been kidnapped to be given to different sex slave rings. However, in 1980, after a flash flood, the bodies of 4 missing girls was uncovered.

It is thought that López began his murder series in 1969, at the age of 21, and may still be murdering today. He claimed to look for a certain level of innocence in his victims. They were all young girls who are thought to be between the ages of 6 to 15. Most of the girls were kidnapped in the middle of the day from different villages. When López was arrested, he confessed that he would first rape the girls and then look them in the eyes as he strangled them to death. To do this he needed sunlight, so all of the murders took place during the day. He was known to have propped the bodies up and had tea parties with the deceased girls. All of his victims were buried in groups because López believed that they would get lonely if a girl was buried alone.

Many experts believe that López began to rape and murder young girls because he felt that his innocence had been stolen at a young age. He wanted to take the innocence of as many young girls as possible. Detectives also claim that López blamed his mother and sister for the abuse he suffered, causing him to target young girls.

On March 9, 1980, López was arrested in Ecuador after being caught trying to kidnap a 12 year old girl. After arriving at the police station López confessed to murdering approximately 110 girls in Ecuador, 100 girls in Columbia and more than 100 in Peru. He then led police to a mass grave of 53 girls he had murdered. These girls were aged between 8 and 12 years old. In 1980, López was found guilty of murdering 110 girls in Ecuador and sentenced to life in prison, which at this time was 16 years in prison. In 1998 he was released from prison with the intention for López to serve a sentence in Columbia. Instead, he was released on $50 bail. It is believed that this happened because Columbia did not have to money to bring him to justice. López’s location is not currently known.

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Pedro López was found guilty for murdering one-hundred and ten girls in Ecuador and had confessed to murdering more than two-hundred and forty girls in Peru and Columbia. We currently do not know the identities of his victims.